Google Creator Day

When some of our readers heard that my daughter Alexandra AKA Sparkles Lund was invited to attend Google Creator Day, they were genuinely interested in hearing about what she learned at this exciting event. She has written a blog post for her own blog, SparklesLund.com and I thought I would share it with you because there is some very interesting information about ways to build the size and engagement of a YouTube channel. Please follow her on Facebook, instagram, Twitter and subscribe to her YouTube channel, Enjoy!  As you may know, I have been really publishing a lot of videos on YouTube [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:18-07:00March 31st, 2016|Main category, Marketing, Twitter for Real Estate|0 Comments

The New Process for RFPs in Real Estate

This change was caused by a quiet revolution. During the Y2K surge that transitioned software from mainframe to browser, there was recognition that the old process of software development was too bureaucratic, slow, and overly regimented. An alternative to traditional project management that emerged in the early 2000s is called Agile software development. They use terms like Scrum, Extreme Programing, Dynamic System Development Method, Feature-Drive Development and many others. The overarching focus of all of these methodologies is to deliver frequent, high quality working software, delivered in “sprints,” which are measured in weeks, not months. The result is continuous improvement. [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:19-07:00March 30th, 2016|Broker Technology Research, MLS Insights|0 Comments

Is Real Estate Still in a Slump?

After the crash in the housing market, real estate was hit by the worst recession in our nation’s history. Frankly, brokers took a beating and operated at a loss for a number of years. Since the low point, things have been steadily been improving. There was a lot of speculation that the foreclosure volume in the hardest hit markets were clogging up the supply side. As we turned the corner, these distressed properties were slowly released into the marketplace and they are mostly absorbed. There was a two to three year heyday for brokers and agents who specialized in REO [...]

Crye-Leike, Realtors® Recognized For Outstanding Website Marketing: Recipient Of Coveted SEO Strategy Award

Nashville, Tenn. (March 9, 2016) – Crye-Leike, REALTORS®, the nation’s fourth largest privately-held residential real estate firm, was named the winner of the 2015 Most Effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy Award for outstanding website marketing of its Crye-Leike.com website. This coveted SEO award was presented by Leading Real Estate Companies of the World® (LeadingRE), a global community of more than 500 high-quality independent real estate firms. Crye-Leike.com was recognized for its website marketing strategy in making it easy for consumers to find its website, with competitive positioning on popular search engines, unique content focusing on key markets, effective incorporation [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:20-07:00March 25th, 2016|Broker Technology Research, Press Releases|0 Comments

Will the Last PC User Please Turn Out the Lights?

Mobile has gone global and everyone from Wired Magazine, Gartner, Forrester Research, and Barron’s is writing about it. The headline is almost always the same – “THE DEATH OF THE PC HAS NOT BEEN GREATLY EXAGGERATED.” The real headline is that PC sales have been negative since 2011 and the 2015 numbers showed the largest drop in sales volume in history. Before you get overwhelmed with the fear of PCs going away, it will take a long time for that to happen. Shipments of new PCs globally is still running at a pace of around 65 million to 70 million [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:20-07:00March 25th, 2016|Broker Technology Research, MLS Insights|0 Comments

Northwood Realty Launches Training Website for Their Agents

About Northwood Northwood Realty is among the largest independent real estate companies in America. They cover multiple states and their 38 offices are focused mainly on the densely populated areas of Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio. They are a full service firm with 974 agents, offering residential, finance, relocation, and insurance. Northwood is pioneering a program for agent training that introduces an effective model for other brokers to consider. It’s called Northwood Tech Trainers. About Northwood Trainers Northwood deploys five field trainers to support just under 1000 agents.  The ratio is effectively one trainer to every 200 agents. The field [...]

The Vision of AMP™ Starting to Become a REALITY thanks to Rapattoni!

A couple of years ago, two of our most progressive clients came to RPR with a new vision about how MLS systems could work. They strongly believed that MLS systems should be offered in modules to make it easier and more practical for brokers and agents to be able to choose the MLS interface that works best for them. Tim Dain from the Austin Board of REALTORS® and Walt Baczkowski from the San Francisco Association of REALTORS® both saw the opportunity to de-couple the listing input, search and reporting functions from the database that houses all of the MLS information [...]

Using Market Data to Drive Media Coverage

Are you getting published in your local media? Is your firm shaping the way opinion leaders and real estate consumers view critical issues in your housing market Associations, MLSs, and brokerages have access to the best local data ever available on trends in their local markets. Sales, prices, inventories, time on market—every day real estate professionals interpret these and other data to win the confidence of their customers and clients. You have a significant opportunity to turn market data into news that attracts business and establishes credibility. National data services like RealtyTrac and CoreLogic as well as sites like Realtor.com, [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:20-07:00March 22nd, 2016|Marketing, MLS Insights|0 Comments

Digital Dawn: Amazon is creating the smart house for the rest of us

Late Christmas morning, after the presents were opened, the wrapping discarded and breakfast consumed, my wife sent a text to her real best friend Paige that read, “I have a new best friend!” Paige promptly responded with “Huh?” “Her name is Alexa, as in the new Amazon Echo,” my wife texted back. How lucky am I, as a guy, to have a wife who put at the top of her gift list, a technology item? But more important was her reaction. She genuinely fell in love with Alexa within minutes after turning it on. It was wickedly cool and ridiculously [...]

By |2018-08-14T03:54:30-07:00March 16th, 2016|Broker Technology Research, Main category|0 Comments

LeadingRE, Miami Beach and Marketing Automation

The Fontainebleau in Miami Beach recently hosted LeadingRE. It’s always happens during what I like to think of as the real estate brokerage convention season. Keller Williams, with its Family Reunion, preceded it in New Orleans and RE/MAX R4 followed it in Las Vegas. If you really want to get a feel for the real estate market in America, these conferences are a great place to gauge what is really happening on the ground because the preponderance of attendees are broker-owners. Conferences that target industry leaders or tech companies or the intelligentsia of real estate are great for forward thinking, [...]

Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Turns Buyers Into An Asset

About the Firm When outlining broker excellence, it is always helpful to begin by painting a picture of the company that is executing an effective strategy. There are many dimensions to operating a successful brokerage. Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International real estate finds its success by serving consumers along the North Shore of Long Island from Manhasset to the North Fork where they operate 25 offices to support about 850 agents. Real Trends ranks the firm 59th in the Nation across all brokerage for volume, and fourth in America among Sotheby’s franchises. They are among the first brokerage firms in the [...]

Protect Your Content Now

My 13-year-old daughter provided me with a raw lesson in digital rights management yesterday. It is a pretty simple lesson really – do not let others build their business using your content, at your expense. Background Like every 13 year old, Social Media is a thing. 13 is the minimum age to open an account on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, Kik, and SnapChat. You need to be 18 for YouTube, but a 13-year-old can sign up with a parent’s permission. For those of you who know me well, you know that my daughter already has a social media following [...]